The Tea Party's "Grassroots"

Went and checked out the "Contract From America," which consists of 10 principles that the teabaggers have thankfully embraced, grateful to finally have principles to stand for as opposed to just hanging out being angry all the time. HuffPost reported that the principles were chosen by teabaggers who visited the Contract website and selected the ones they liked the best from a list. The question on my mind was "Who made up the list?" According to the website, this initiative represents "a grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress." So, supposedly this was all formulated by "real Americans" of the kind that Sarah Palin loves -- you know, those ordinary patriots with no political experience who have risen up to create this great grassroots movement to protest Obama and his socialist agenda. You know, call me cynical, but I'm just not so sure about that.

The "About Us" section of the site thanks several Tea Party Patriots from local chapters as being instrumental in getting the intitiative going, before going on to thank operatives from a number of organizations that the site lists as "Founding Partners."  Let's see who those "Founding Partners" are:

• Tea Party Patriots - According to SourceWatch, "TPP consists of a website (http://teapartypatriots.org), the ownership of which is masked by ProtectPrivacy, located in the Netherlands." There is no no staff listing or other information identifying any individual as responsible for the site. SourceWatch also states the group was founded not by ordinary patriots, but by FreedomWorks; according to SourceWatch, is still tightly controlled by that organization. A Facebook page listing its National Officers pushes Glenn Beck's 912 Project. One of these officers, Rob Neppell, is the owner of a privately-held new media corporation in California.  Another, Mark Meckler, bills himself as an "internet lawyer" and new media consultant, and moonlights as a GOP operative. A third, Jenny Beth Martin, is a former GOP operative who became a teabagger after she and her husband filed for bankruptcy when their temp agency went belly-up in 2008-- they owed the Feds half a million bucks, so they must have been doing pretty well before that. A fourth, Amy Kremer, left TPP for Tea Party Express, which the TPP regards as overly tied to the GOP. Martin and Kremer are both from Georgia, which is also where the TPP trademark was registered. Hmmm.. isn't that where Newt Gingrich is from?
• American Solutions - Speaking of Newt, he happens to be the founder and chairman of this group, which bills itself as a "citizens' action network." I thought that "Contract From America" title sounded familiar!
• Americans for Tax Reform - founded by Grover Norquist at the request of Ronald Reagan, according to their website. Norquist was also part of Iran/Contra, helped get George W. Bush elected, was a co-author of "Contract With America" along with Newt Gingrich, and served as a staffer on the GOP's Republican Platform Committee in 1988, 1992 and 1996.
• National Taxpayers Union -- group with heavy funding from Big Tobacco. Grover Norquist worked here before going on to found Americans for Tax Reform.
• Liberty Central -- founded by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia
• The Liberty Lab -- one of several sites run by Scott W. Graves, another "new media and political communications" guru and head of an outfit called "Partisan Media Group." Really.
• Let Freedom Ring - Founded by the son of millionaire philanthropist John Templeton, recent projects include a documentary about the faith of George W. Bush, Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Zell Miller that the organization hopes will mobilize envangelicals to vote.
• FairTax - founded by three Houston multimillionaires who put up $1.5 million each as seed money.
• Regular Folk United -- founded by Lori Roman, whose previous jobs include stints as Executive Director of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Chief of Staff of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education. ALEC pushes legislation that favours big business and rollbacks environmental regulations.
• The Heartland Institute - libertarian think tank founded by the millionaire owner of a Chicago investment securities firm
• The Next Right -- founded by Soren Dayton, best-known for getting fired from John McCain's presidential campaign for tweeting a link to a video linking Obama to Malcolm X; Jonathon Henke, who served as New Media Director for the Republican Senate caucus and Online Brand Manager for Fred Thompson's campaign; and Patrick Ruffini, a well-known Republican party new media strategist.
• TeaParty365 - the New York City branch of Tea Party Patriots.

Ya know, there's not actually a lot of plain ordinary folks on this list, are there? It amazes me how easily-led the teabaggers are -- a bunch of rich guys and GOP operatives have created their umbrella organization and now have written their guiding principles, and they still think not only that they're a grassroots organization, but that they actually control their own thoughts and actions. Amazing.